


Ana's Acquisitions

by MelyndaR



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 13:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7440583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyndaR/pseuds/MelyndaR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one was going to argue that Peggy stayed in LA – and thereby in Howard’s mansion – in part, at least, because Mr. Jarvis had persuaded her to give the idea a try. Sure, there was Daniel to consider, but Jarvis had talked her into it. Or so was the consensus.<br/>As for when the rest of the acquisitions started… in regards to the growth of the menagerie, Jarvis would always point to his employer. The acquisition of human residents, though… well, Edwin had more than once been seen glancing tellingly towards his darling wife whilst keeping his mouth more or less closed on the subject.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [All In](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6202189) by [Sholio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio). 



I. The Tailor

No one was going to argue that Peggy stayed in LA – and thereby in Howard’s mansion – in part, at least, because Mr. Jarvis had persuaded her to give the idea a try. Sure, there was Daniel to consider, but Jarvis had talked her into it. Or so was the consensus.

As for when the rest of the acquisitions started… in regards to the growth of the menagerie, Jarvis would always point to his employer. The acquisition of _human_ residents, though… well, Edwin had more than once been seen glancing tellingly towards his darling wife whilst keeping his mouth more or less closed on the subject. It wasn’t that he minded, necessarily, it was more that he couldn’t figure out how or when Ana had started to feel such a practically _magnetic_ pull towards these people.

In any case, Miss Carter decided to indefinitely extend her stay, and that was that – the beginning of the end of what little normalcy the mansion had ever laid claim to.

When it came to Miss Carter, Ana’s involvement in the… well, the _lunacy,_ Edwin decided was the word, it wasn’t so bad. She continued to sew for Peggy and act as wardrobe consultant for her. _Wonderful_ , in Edwin’s opinion. That was something simple and wasn’t strenuous, it gave Ana something to do, and was even within her field of professional expertise, as it were, as a tailor.

More than once Peggy had asked her, “Are you sure that you don’t mind doing all of this, Mrs. Jarvis? I hate taking up your time with these things.”

“Not at all.” Ana always laughed off the idea  with a smile and one of her brightest chuckles. “I’m happy to help wherever I can.”

And perhaps because of that fact, for all of the adventures that Miss Carter brought into Edwin’s life, what Ana did for the agent was nearly saner than what she did for anyone else.

* * *

 II. The Scientist

In all fairness, in the end, Dr. Wilkes had never exactly _left_ LA – or Mr. Stark’s mansion, after the SSR had searched his house – and one could hardly blame Ana for _that_ , could they?

After Dr. Wilkes took up his unintended permanent residence, though, nothing else seemed to change for him either – including the fact that Ana continued to pitter around in the lab with him. Well, perhaps “pitter” was too menial a word for what Dr. Wilkes took it upon himself to teach her to do. She had, over the years, gotten the opportunity to work with Mr. Stark on his projects every once in awhile when Edwin was unavailable, but a good half of the time, he was generally too boisterous and flighty for her to make heads or tails of what he was trying to teach her or have her help him with. But at Dr. Wilkes’ side – assisting a quieter, arguably saner man – Ana genuinely seemed to enjoy herself in the labs. And in time, Jason, too, seemed to come to feel that he could request her presence and she would be there for him if it were at all possible.

Whether or not she or the good doctor had meant for it to work out that way, for Dr. Wilkes, Ana managed to turn herself into some form of a scientific assistant – as long as Mr. Stark and his clattering and explosions kept themselves as near as possible to the other side of the lab. 

* * *

III. The Therapist

The thing about the whole mess of it – of the migrations and move-ins and never-moving-outs – was that the first few happened in such rapid-fire succession that Edwin found it simpler, when he looked back on it, to categorize it by person instead of by sequence of events. Starting from the day Ana had come home from the hospital, the exact events had blurred together dizzyingly, so that he didn’t actually realize that the mansion was becoming more populated until Ana and Miss Carter joined forces and convinced Chief Sousa to move in as well.

He’d walked into Jack Thompson’s hospital room the day after the man had been released from surgery to find three others by the chief’s bedside – Miss Carter, Chief Sousa, and Ana – and they all seemed to be in the middle of some sort of debate.

“There’s no need for that,” the chief had insisted calmly.

“Of course there is!” Ana replied.

Miss Carter was quick to second, “If the SSR left your house in any condition like Dr. Wilkes’ house, then she’s right; that place was nearly uninhabitable by the time he was able to get back to it. In fact, he’s still staying with Howard.”

“Then it sounds like you’ve got a pretty full house already.”

“Not at all,” Ana and Peggy had insisted together while Edwin watched from the doorway, unnoticed as of yet while he tried to ascertain whether or not he was correct in what he thought they were discussing.

Then Ana, god help them all, had moved closer to Chief Sousa, laying a hand on his shoulder and mentioning something that neither Miss Carter nor Edwin could hear. But she was smiling just a _bit_ too innocently while gesturing back to Miss Carter, and Chief Sousa blinked at Ana in surprise before asking, “You are nothing like what I assumed ‘Mrs. Jarvis’ was going to be, are you?”

Ana laughed, and Edwin was left to assume that was something she’d heard frequently from the SSR people. “Likely not. So, what do you say – move in with Mr. Stark?”

“Oh, don’t word it like that,” Peggy yelped, stepping closer to Chief Sousa and putting her own hands on his other shoulder – he looked down at those hands on his shoulder as if it surprised him and meant something more than maybe it should’ve, and if Edwin hadn’t been sure before that Miss Carter had taken his subtle advice regarding the man, he was sure of it then. “Would you like to move in with _me_ , Daniel?”

Tantamount to what Ana had pointed out, Edwin was sure.

Within the next forty-eight hours, Edwin found himself moving Chief Sousa’s belongings into one of the guest bedrooms in the mansion – specifically, (“coincidentally, of course,” Ana had insisted when asked, but she was wearing that coy little smile that he knew all too well. Ye gods, he had married a bad liar.) into the bedroom right beside Miss Carter’s.

And that was only the beginning of Ana’s interactions with the LA chief. It certainly didn’t stop there; in fact, Edwin was fairly certain that Chief Sousa might well have gotten closer to Ana then even he knew. During the daylight hours, he knew for a fact that Daniel was oftentimes found in the kitchen beside Ana, the two of them cooking together, talking, laughing, and swapping recipes as if they had not a care in the world.

Oh, how he wished he could believe that were true.

Even so, Ana’s friendship with Chief Sousa was one of the… lighter relationships she’d cultivated with one of the new mansion residents. It was a startlingly _normal_ relationship when considered alongside what some of the others had between them. They cooked and talked and teased – mostly Ana teased Chief Sousa about Miss Carter, because… well, Ana would be Ana, but eventually he got in the spirit of things and rallied to toss back a couple remarks about Edwin that would make her laugh instead of threaten to claw at his eyes. She gave unsolicited but lighthearted advice about his cooking and his relationship with Miss Carter and, on one notable occasion, his golfing skills.

At the very most, Ana learned how to help him with some of his physical therapy when it was needed; she convinced him to spar with her after awhile, and quietly enquired of Mr. Stark if a more functional prosthetic might truly be made for him.

Just like with everyone else that she met, with everyone else who lived on Mr. Stark’s property, Ana _cared_ for Daniel Sousa, and that was more than enough, even though Edwin had learned to expect nothing less from his fantastic wife.


	2. Chapter 2

IV. The Partner ( _or_ The Friendship No One Saw Coming)

Things had been fine, or at least normal _enough_ up until the day that Ana came home from the hospital –the same day that Jack Thompson was shot. That was when “normal” life in general – and Ana’s separating herself from the SSR agents in particular – became a thing of the past.

Of all the ridiculous things, in hindsight, Jarvis had to wonder if somehow Chief Thompson’s shooting, more than anything else, hadn’t triggered Ana’s instinct to take these particular people in.

For no reason that his wife was willing to admit, Ana had fiercely insisted that she be in the first car to the hospital – and she didn’t even know Chief Thompson. She had gotten her way in the end, if for no other reason than Peggy was in too much of a rush to let Edwin stop and talk Ana out of coming along.

Since that first hospital visit – Jarvis, Ana, Peggy, and Chief Sousa all rushing into the hospital only to be told nothing more than the fact that Jack was still alive but unconscious and in surgery – Ana had inserted herself into the entire mess of Miss Carter’s world and refused to look back. In his own way, no one was more surprised by this fact than Edwin himself. He knew Ana better than any person alive, but that meant that he had seen her shaken and afraid – so wrecked by the shellshock that she wouldn’t even admit to having that the very thought of those darkest nights made him nauseous. In part, it was those fears of hers that had kept her away from Miss Carter for as long as she had been. But when people needed help, Edwin had never doubted his wife’s capacity to reach out to them and give that needed assistance in some form – not even when the man in question was Jack Thompson.

Not even when, on that very first night home, Ana’s shellshock and nightmares  returned with a terrible vengeance that meant neither of them slept at all that night.

Chief Sousa and Miss Carter immediately made it part of their daily routine to stop by and check on Chief Thompson, and though Edwin felt no such inclination to do the same, Ana did, even though she _still_ wasn’t sleeping any during the night hours.

Thus it began. And when the chief woke up within only two days of coming out of surgery, it got worse – which was to say that Ana outright appointed herself his daytime companion, despite the protest of – Edwin imagined – more than just he.

“ _Why_ , Ana?! God knows I love you, but you should still be at home, in our own bed, resting yourself,” he had protested the day of Chief Thompson’s waking while they still sat in the car in the parking lot, Ana having convinced him to drive her to the hospital. “You do not have to check on him every day. He’s never even _seen_ you before, you know.”

“Well, I intend to change that,” she had announced easily, opening her own car door and climbing out before anything more could be said on the subject. “You can either join me inside for a bit, or you can pick me up later before you begin preparations for supper.”

“Supper?!” he’d squawked in protest. “How long do you intend to be here?!”

She’d shut the door without comment, leaving him to mutter an oath under his breath. He should’ve followed her into the hospital, but he didn’t, choosing to start up the car and drive back to the mansion instead. He’d grudgingly learned to trust the hospital staff while Ana was staying here, and Chief Thompson was certainly still bedridden anyway; surely nothing could happen.

He should’ve known by then not to underestimate his darling Ana.

Given the circumstances and her own stubbornness, it took Ana less time to attach herself to Chief Thompson than it had any of the others, but even then, Edwin wasn’t necessarily sure _how_ she had done it, and that was a story that Ana had arbitrarily decided to keep steadfastly to herself.

* * *

Chief Thompson was asleep when Ana walked into his hospital room that morning, and despite her best attempts at waiting for him to wake up and her own recently acquired distaste for hospitals, she fell asleep as well, curled up in a stiff-backed chair by his bedside. And that was how Jack Thompson first saw her – an unknown redhead sleeping not even a yard away from him with a piece of sewing dropped from her hands into her lap. Despite his morphine-induced haze, his first instinct was to grab for the gun that Peggy had stashed underneath his pillow for him. _Just in case_.

The guard that Sousa had stationed outside his hospital room saw him move, though, and hurried in to still his hand before he could wake the woman. “You don’t wanna do that, Chief.”

No, as a matter of fact, he didn’t. Movement – particularly _quick_ movement – was proving unusually difficult thanks to the drugs in his  system. “Who’s she?” Jack demanded of the agent.

His “guard” shrugged, apparently as clueless as Jack as he supplied only, “She’s one of Carter’s people is all I know. Nobody’s said her name so that I’ve heard.”

Jack was tempted to make a snarky remark about the marvelous guarding being done around here, but again… drugs were slowing down his thoughts as well as his movements, and he waved the agent off before the other man could realize that for himself. So he disappeared out of the room, and Jack took stock of the woman on his own, noting her hair first – _wow, that was_ really _red –_ then her clothes – summery and light, and nothing like what he’d seen Carter or even Rose wear. She would look like a little girl if she weren’t so unmistakably _womanly_ , and if she was one of Carter’s people, then she was alright, wasn’t she?

At least that was the last thought he had before he put his gun back under the pillow where it belonged and let the morphine pull him back down to sleep all over again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I haven't mentioned it yet, but the story that inspired this one - "All In" by Sholio (or in fact, all of Sholio's Agent Carter stories) are some of the best, most ic Agent Carter fics I've read. Just reading her stories sent my Agent Carter plot bunnies into a frenzy - there's literally two more stories I'm working on that were inspired by "All In" alone. My point being, go read Sholio's Agent Carter fics because they're amazing!

She was awake and reading a book in silence the second time he woke.

“Who are you?” he asked, his voice coming out rougher than he’d technically meant for it to, thanks to sleep.

She startled at the unexpected voice, and nearly dropped her book. Then, catching his eye, she smiled as she realized he was awake, and replied, “I am Mrs. Jarvis; you can call me Ana, if you’d like.”

 _Ana Jarvis_. It took him a second to recall the name and remember who she was – _he_ really _hated how sluggish morphine apparently made him._ “Don’t take this the wrong way, but… why are you here?”

Her smile flickered out around the edges and then back again as she replied, “To keep you company.”

“While I was sleeping?” Too late, he saw that he really needed to employ a bit more tact here.

She shrugged, and her smile definitely slipped then. “I… suppose I was waiting for you to wake up.” Holding up her book, Ana asked, “Would you like me to read to you – until you fall asleep again; I know how the drugs can be. I can start the story from the beginning, if you want.”

What he _wanted_ was to know why she was here. Was she really just as nice as all that, and actually wanted to sit with… well, he couldn’t even really call himself a friend of her husband’s, could he? He wasn’t even sure whether or not _Carter_ would call him a friend. That didn’t particularly matter, though, in the bigger picture, and he found himself nodding his agreement despite his suspicion.

As she read, he allowed himself to subtly observe her. She was nervous; that was the first thing he realized – no real surprise, given that she had recently been in his situation. She startled, if only barely, at every unexpected noise from outside of the hospital room, and one hand was constantly fiddling with the fabric of her skirt as she read.

“You know,” he said carefully, during a break for her to turn a page. “You’re safe here, right?”

A smile tugged down the edges of her mouth as she looked up from her book. “I’m sorry?”

He shook his head, muttering, “Don’t be,” then realized that probably hadn’t made any sense, and informed her, “I have a gun under my pillow, there’s a guard at the door, and Carter and Sousa are out there looking for the guy who did this as we speak. You’re safe here, Mrs. Jarvis; no one is going to hurt you, or shoot at you again.”

“It’s… not that. I just,” she shrugged. “Do not like hospitals.” She twisted her hands together, attempting a weak smile as she explained only, “Bad memories, I suppose.”

“Most everybody doesn’t like hospitals,” he pointed out. “And usually for reasons close enough to what you just said – bad memories. But, if you’re the Ana Jarvis I’ve heard Marge talk about, I’ve heard you’re a pretty tough lady.”

He had the presence of mind to cut himself off before he added, “Even if you are a little nuts for marrying a guy like Jarvis.”

Her eyebrows flew up in surprise. “What in the _world_ gave you that impression?”

 _Maybe now was a better time for the crack at Jarvis? Probably not._ “I’ve seen Carter make use of that holster you gave her; she says you had your own gun in it at the time. That’s got to mean something, right?”

She swallowed, shrugging, and it appeared that Jack had said something to only make this worse, but he couldn’t figure out what. Softly, she said, “I do not… use guns anymore, I’m afraid.”

 _Oh._ He could read between the lines there. _Because of Whitney._ “Not even for target practice to try and show Jarvis up?” he asked with a dry smile. “Surely you could do that.”

“It’s… the noise.” She drew in a breath, now looking anywhere _but_ at him. “It reminds me… and I cannot… _handle_ it.”

Jack very carefully did not ask if she was referencing having flashbacks. The idea of this woman in the bright clothes with the lilting voice that had been so animated in her reading only minutes ago – the idea of _her_ having flashbacks and shellshock made his stomach twist in a way that had surprisingly little to do with his own pain.

“I understand that,” he said lightly, suddenly hoping that she would go back to reading now.

Instead she asked softly, curious, “Do you think you’ll be… capable of holding a gun when you return to the SSR?”

The answer came automatically. “Sure. I have to be; it’s my job. Protect and serve, right?”

“What if I think it is my job to protect my people, and I failed at that because I did not remember _my_ training at the right moment?”

He wasn’t sure who she was calling “her people,” and he was halfway afraid to ask. What he did know was: “You’re not a cop. When it came to Frost kidnapping Wilkes, I heard what you did, which is more than most people would’ve even _thought_ to do. I bet you’re perfectly capable of carrying out whatever you know to do, and just think you’re not right now.”

She looked at him strangely, a dry sort of smile coming to her face as she asked, “Did you just say a woman was capable, Chief Thompson. I shall have to tell Miss Carter.”

He blinked, not having realized what he’d said until she put it that way. He hadn’t really thought about his words, had only meant to somehow comfort a stranger. “Must be the morphine talking,” he said of the entire mess of it.

She smiled, and then turned back to her reading.


	4. Chapter 4

Ana Jarvis marched into Jack’s hospital room every day while he was there, sometimes with a book or a deck of cards – _how_ she knew how to play some of the card games, he was afraid to ask – or, once it was cleared with the nurses, a plate of cookies.

They struck up a strange sort of friendship that Jack was certain he wouldn’t have taken the time to start unless he was in his current situation. It didn’t make him glad to have been shot, by any means, nor did it make it worth it… but it did make up for it _some_.

He learned about Ana Jarvis, and what he learned sometimes surprised him. He began to keep a mental list, and told himself it was because Jarvis clearly told her things, and that might later become pertinent to the SSR.

She knew how to cook _well_.

She was sometimes very flighty, and other times not. _He started to notice that the flighty days were after nights where she didn’t look like she’d slept well, and he chocked that up to nightmares that he wasn’t even going to begin to talk about._

She was very artistic. She’d brought a sketchbook in a couple of times and messed with it while he was asleep, but he’d peeked inside once or twice, and seen enough to know that she was pretty good at that too.

She _could not_ sing. More than once, he’d woken up to her humming softly, or murmuring a tune in a language he didn’t understand, and, the fact of the matter was that she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. _Pity for someone who had such a nice speaking voice._

Above all, Ana Jarvis was _talkative._ She told him stories of Carter and Jarvis, Dr. Wilkes and Stark, even little things about Sousa and Carter that he wasn’t sure whether to smile or gag at. There were other times, other stories, that she seemed to reserve for the days when she was a little flightier. She told him stories of Budapest, then – tales that were tantamount to _her_ war stories, with a cast of family members that she never actually named; it was always “my sister,” “my older brother,” “my mother,” “my younger brother,” “my sister-in-law,” “my brother’s son,” “my sister’s oldest,” “my brother-in-law.” To him, they were nameless, faceless people, but he saw how much there were days when those were the stories that she _needed_ to tell to _someone_ , even if he didn’t understand her reasons. He began to feel honored that she would choose to tell him those things – from the time her little brother threw her hair ribbon into a tree, to the time her little sister nearly drowned in one of the public bathing pools, to how her older brother had come home beaten and bloody after trying to defend another Jew.

But he never quite managed to forget that conversation on their very first day, about how she could no longer bring herself to handle a gun.

So, when he finally got out of the hospital and could move around well enough – Carter and Sousa weren’t convinced, but he didn’t ask them anyway – he decided to change that. He was staying at Stark’s mansion until he was cleared for flight, so that made the whole thing even easier to do.

After a little bit of preparation, he found Ana out drawing by the pool and asked her, “Do you have a gun I could practice with? I set up a target on the other side of the house, but I don’t have a gun at the moment.”

She looked up at him in confusion – she knew by now that he always had a gun on him – but gave him the exact answer he’d been hoping for. “Mine is in the hall bureau, if you want to borrow it.”

“Perfect.” He retrieved the gun and backtracked to Ana to ask, “Do you want to come watch me? It’s just you and me here for now, and I’m feeling a little lonely.”

She looked down at her sketchbook – she was working on a caricature of Jarvis and Stark’s flamingo, Jack noticed, and he would’ve laughed at it if he hadn’t been so focused – and answered softly, “You know I can’t.”

“No,” he corrected. “I know you don’t want to – but I think you should.”

“No, thank you.”

He crouched down beside her lawn chair, trying to catch her eye even while she evaded eye contact. “You know, from the stories you’ve told me about your family, I get the feeling your big brother was kind of… well, a jerk.”

She shook her head. “He was fun, teasing, when he was young. The war made him angry and bitter.”

“But he was still the type of brother who you felt picked on you with his teasing?”

“Not too meanly.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully before asking, “Would he badger you into doing something if he thought it was best for you?”

Ana looked up at him then, understanding – and a warning – flashing in her eyes. “Yes,” she eventually answered. “He taught me how to spar that way, so I could protect myself if I needed to.”

“So…” Jack let his gaze wonder to the pool. “Even when you didn’t want to do something, he – out of concern for you – made you do it because it was what he believed was best for you?”

He felt her stare at him in silence for a long moment before she sighed shakily, slapped her sketchbook closed, and stood, heading for the back of the house. “Come on then, _big brother_ ,” she all but snapped at him.

He didn’t miss the tremor in her voice, though, and jogged just enough to catch up with her, and put what he hoped was a comforting hand on her shoulder while they walked. He kept that hand there as he handed her her own gun – after enduring a second silent stare-down before she gave in and took it.

Then he took his own gun from the patio table where he’d left it, and said, “I’m going to shoot twice, then you’re going to do the same. Let’s make a bet.” _Maybe that would make her more likely to agree to this._ “If I get the best out of six shots fired…” He grinned, inspiration striking. “You have to spar with me, just once, because I’m curious about what you can do. You’d never mentioned you could spar before.”

“It was never mentioned to _you_ ,” she corrected, an edge that he wasn’t used to still clinging to her tone.

“And what do you get if you get the best out of six?” She muttered something in what he had come to understand was her mother tongue, and he requested, “English, please; I don’t speak Hungarian.”

She turned to glare at him – she was _very unhappy_ with him right now, but it wasn’t technically like he was forcing her hand, was it? – and told him, “I said I get to shoot you between the eyes.”

He grinned at the sass, undeterred, and remarked, “I guess that means we’re both planning on me winning.”

And win he did. Five of his bullets hit the target to her one, but he was proud of her simply for the fact that she had shot the gun in the first place. The moment they had each fired six times, though, she threw her gun down and sank into the grass beside it, trembling as she put her hands over her eyes.

“Ana?” he asked, watching her carefully as he knelt down in front of her.

“There,” she snapped, her accent markedly thicker in her upset. “I did it; are you happy now, _fattyu_?”

He was fairly certain he didn’t want to know what the translation of that word was. “Yes,” Jack said calmly, afraid to touch her even though he wanted to make her look at him, meet his gaze so she could see the pride that he couldn’t find a way to voice. “I am – because you’re right, _you did it_.” He picked up her gun, held it in front of her. “You fired this again – you even hit the target– and you didn’t…” he cut himself off, not sure he wanted to go there, and pretty sure she wouldn’t want him to either. _You didn’t have a flashback._ “This is growth, Ana. This is good. It’s healing.”

She looked at him then, her eyes still fiery as she informed him, “You’re going to need ‘healing’ by the time I’m done sparring with you.”

He raised his eyebrows, amused again, and said only, “I think I’ve tortured you enough today. Sparring can happen tomorrow.”

She was still shaking as she stood up, but she jerked away from his helping hand on her elbow and strode back towards the pool without another word. He waited until she was out of hearing range – _it was the_ sound _of the gun, not the actual firing of it, that set off her flashbacks, after all_ – and emptied his clip into the target, hoping that he was doing the right thing by his new friend.


	5. Chapter 5

For such a big house, it was unreal how few people were generally there during the day, Jack mused the next morning – _unless, of course, Stark’s “accounting assistants” decided they wanted to crawl all over the pool area for a day._ But he wasn’t headed for the pool; he was on his way to the Jarvises outdoor gym. Ana had barely spoken to him since they’d done target practice together the day before, and it was immediately clear by her stance and the same fire in her eyes that she was still out for blood when he saw her waiting for him on the sparring mat.

He smiled a greeting, friendly enough, but increasingly unsure of how this was going to go. _He really hadn’t thought this through; he wasn’t even sure where he was allowed to_ touch _her, let alone how he was supposed to take her down!_

She returned his smile – and aimed a karate chop towards his neck.

He barely caught her wrist in time, asking, “Don’t you want to set up some groun—”

Ana twisted underneath his arm and pulled lightly at his wrist. Too late he realized _just how bad_ of an idea this was as his still-healing shoulder was jerked – albeit gently enough – and the world wavered in front of his eyes.

He gasped in pain, only for her to sweep her leg behind his knees and bring him jarringly to the ground, laying on his back and staring up at the canopy as he fought back a wave of nausea-inducing pain.  “You’re mean,” he grunted inadequately.

At the moment he was thinking she was a lot more than that, actually, but he got the suspicious feeling that the moment he started to voice _those_ thoughts, Jarvis would materialize out of thin air and try to kill him for it.

As if to prove his point, the Jarvis asked cautiously from some point above and behind him, “What in the world is going on here?”

Jack tilted his head back on the mat – that pulled at his shoulder too, and he winced – and looked at Jarvis upside down as Ana chirped cheerfully, “Retribution.”

“For what?” a second voice asked in something like shock, and Jack tilted his head back just another hair to see Carter step up beside Jarvis.

Apparently, they’d just returned from doing Jack-wasn’t-sure-he-wanted-to-know-what, and had come to investigate the pained noises – his, thank you very much – coming from the side yard. He started to ease himself into a sitting position, and even as she glared at him, Ana offered a hand to help him up. He ignored it.

“For making me fire a gun yesterday,” the redhead answered Carter dryly.

“I didn’t _make_ you do anything,” Jack objected from his seated position. He wasn’t quite sure he wanted to try standing just yet. At this rate, Ana might take him down just because she could – because apparently… you know, _she could._

At the same time, Jarvis repeated in surprise, “You fired a gun again.”

She still sounded completely disapproving as she told the butler, “It wasn’t my idea.”

“But you did it,” Jack reminded her.

“Hm,” Jarvis said, and nothing else. He, apparently, didn’t know what else _to_ say.

Carter, on the other hand, having been quiet for the most part, said thoughtfully, as if the idea left her a little amused, “You two could actually be good for one another, you know.”

“What?” Jack asked.

Much more calmly, Ana inquired, “How?”

Jarvis just suddenly looked very alarmed at the idea.

“How?” Carter answered. “He’ll challenge you when he sets his mind to it, I think – get you shooting and sparring as well as you could possibly be able. You’ll get your confidence back, in some ways, I think. And you, Ana, have the patience of a saint most days, which is entirely required when dealing with Jack Thompson, but you also won’t take any of his…”

“ _Szar_?” Ana volunteered brightly.

Uncertain, Carter opened her mouth, and, seeing what she was about to say, Jack held up a hand and suggested, “Don’t ask what that means.”

“Why not?” she asked.

Ana looked down at Jack, inquiring, “Do _you_ know what that means?”

“No,” he met her eyes with the driest of smiles. “But I’ve learned that if you say it in Hungarian it’s probably crude enough that you don’t want people to hear it in English and realize that you, Mrs. Jarvis, are capable of swearing like that.”

Jarvis snorted, and though he still clearly didn’t know what to think, the smirk he shot in Ana’s direction let Jack know he’d hit the nail on the head. Carter laughed in surprise, and, suddenly, so did Ana.

“Jack Thompson, you are a terrible man,” Ana informed him, but she was smiling. He wasn’t sure whether or not she meant what she’d said.

 Jarvis looked more nervous than anything all over again as he asked Ana warily, “You’re not going to… make him one of your… _people_ , are you, my darling?”

Ana shrugged, still surveying Jack as she replied, “That was originally the plan, you know. Maybe it still should be the plan.”

Jack didn’t bother trying to bite back the smile that wanted to find its way onto his face. Ana Jarvis was a little crazy and a whole lot caring and he liked her far more than he ever thought he could like any Jarvis. “Maybe it should,” he agreed evenly.

This time when she offered him a hand to help him stand, he took it.

Carter walked away with that amused smile still on her face, and Jarvis went with her, muttering something about a…

“Did he just say ‘A flamingo in your menagerie of people’?”

“It’s very likely, yes,” Ana said with a smirk.

“What is that even supposed to mean?”

She shrugged, her expression caught between a smile and a smirk as she said levelly, “It means you’re one of my people now, Jack.”

He very consciously did not admit that he was halfway intrigued to see what that would come to mean.


End file.
